Bittersweet End
by blackballoons
Summary: All good things come to an end. They’ve got to move in their own directions eventually, their lives having reached the fork in the road that is seeing them diverge down two different paths. Implied Sam/Freddie and slight Carly/Griffin.


**Bittersweet End**

The separation is inevitable, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.

They are eighteen when it ends and the death of what their lives has revolved around for the past four and three quarter years feels like they've lost a leg in a traumatic accident. You desperately want the limb back but you have to adapt, have to learn to live without it.

Life moves on.

So do best friends.

* * *

"**Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter."**

* * *

Out of the three friends Sam is the one who sees the beginning of the end coming first. She is smarter than people give her credit for, an unusual awareness of her surroundings meaning she picks up on the slightest change in pace and analyses it until her head hurts. The pace of their three-way friendship has slowed, becoming strained and awkward and no matter how frantic her need to voice her concern is, she is too scared of the fallout to do so.

She doesn't deal well with brutal reality checks.

Instead she lets it simmer deep inside, lets it grow larger by the day to drive a wedge between everything they know, becoming too much of a huge deal for her to do anything about it. It becomes an elephant in the room and she wants to do nothing more than to curl up in a ball, stick her fingers in her ears and refuse to acknowledge its existence.

A small nagging feeling develops in the pit of her stomach – at first she thinks it is hunger, but she soon changes her mind when no amount of ham and fried chicken makes it go away – when Carly begins skipping out on the short skits they are meant to be recording as a group of three to put on the website, the brunette preferring to spend her free time making out with her 'bad' boyfriend behind her older brothers back. Instead they have to get Spencer, who happily obliges, to stand in on the _iHave A Question_ and _Three-Way Random Debate _segments. Now, there is nothing wrong with Spencer doing this for them, after all he came to their rescue and is all too willing to do whatever they ask of him, but he just isn't Carly.

There can't be iCarly if there is no Carly. The name says it all.

Sam can see Carly putting distance between herself and SamandFreddie, but she doesn't know what to do. She is tempted to grab Carly by the shoulders and shake her until she comes to some sort of realisation of the damage she is causing. She wants to scream in the slightly younger girls face, shout and yell and punch and kick until her throat gets sore and her limbs give up.

But Carly is clueless, naive and completely oblivious.

Carly should be around to tell Sam to quit it when she is berating Freddie for spilling tinkleberry smoothie all over the iCarly server and be there to take the bowl full of cereal and root beer from her hands, telling her how disgusting (but adorable in a scary kinda way) she is. She should be the one interviewing the 'rotten egg' for the _Disgusting Super Slow Motion_ recording and then be smashing eggs into Sam's forehead. Carly should be taking part in the _iCarly Interventions_ because Carly is the voice of reason and people are far more likely to listen to her than a shouting Sam and an uncomfortable Freddie.

But Carly is never around. She is growing up, getting a life, one that doesn't involve producing an 'immature' webshow with her 'immature' best friends.

No matter how much Sam wants her best friend back and as horrible as it may sound, Sam semi-enjoys having some Carly-free time because it gives her a chance to be alone with Freddie. Not to yank his hair or pull his trousers down or dump noodles down his shirt or glue his butt to a beanbag, but to spend time with him, getting to know what makes him tick besides her wicked ways. She hates to admit it but she likes it, the late afternoons and entire weekends spent in the Shay's loft devising ideas with the dork whilst trying to avoid staring at him for too long. Laughing at his lame jokes is becoming like second nature, as is falling asleep on his shoulder after a long day of messing about.

She wonders if Freddie knows it, wonders if he can feel it gnawing at his bones like a chest cold you can't get shot of. She wants to ask him if he has nightmares involving an end that is chaotic and spiteful and full of hate, words oozing with malice and eyes burning with anger. She is in dire need to know how he sees the end, if he can see 'Sam and Freddie' being the outcome as apposed to 'Carly and Sam' or 'Freddie and Carly', if he needs her as much as she is going to need him.

Instead she ignores everything she knows; throwing herself headfirst into being the obnoxious, abrasive and menacing dirty blonde the World Wide Web knows and loves. She co-hosts iCarly with a false smile stuck on her face, laughing her way through the skits that are becoming increasingly more and more awful because they've all run out of steam and have begun recycling ideas that first occurred three years ago, hoping nobody notices. She random dances, partakes in meatball fights, shaves stuffed toys, messes with Lewbert and tries to ignore the lingering hostility. More than anything she is optimistic in hoping that their audience are too caught up in their comedy to sense the prickly atmosphere.

Her grip on what keeps her moving forward in life is growing slack, and she is ready to let go because it is killing her inside.

She can't hold on anymore – it hurts too much.

Sam takes comfort in knowing that when the end comes she'll still have Freddie to keep her sane. He is too stubborn to give up on Sam even if Carly is more than willing and she loves him for holding on when she cannot.

Maybe her life doesn't rotate around iCarly but around Freddie instead. He is the only component in this huge mess that is stopping her from walking out of the door and never coming back.

He is her motivation to stick it out to the bittersweet end.

* * *

"**In the end, we remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."**

* * *

Freddie is second to notice the end looming up ahead, unavoidable and ready to be as painful as possible. He isn't conscious of change and he finds it difficult to read people, particularly girls (something that is inconvenient when both his best friends are female), so it takes other people pointing out the obvious for everything to fall into place. And when it does he really wishes it hadn't.

It is after one particularly uncomfortable webcast when Freddie is reading messages left by their fans that everything clicks in his head and he isn't sure which idea is better – shoving his head through the computer monitor or chewing his way through the electrical wires – because he feels so stupid for not realising sooner.

Jenna says: _iCarly isn't what it used to be. The friction between Carly and Sam is making it too painful to watch. Sorry guys, but until you figure your chizz out I'm not tuning in._

Reuben says: _Dudes, whaddup with the atmosphere? Sam looks like she is ready to punch Carly and Carly just looks freakin' bored._

He stops reading after two comments, the message having sunk in. He tries to think back to when they were happy with what they're doing, and he means truly and completely happy, and he can't think of an example within the last year and a half. Maybe it is the strain of finishing high school taking its toll, the long hours all of them are pulling in an attempt not to flunk their final year making them tetchy and sour towards one another. He can't recall the last time he had a proper conversation with Carly and he can't remember when he last saw Sam smile, a real smile, not the false ones she has been slowly perfecting week by week.

His memory will only last him so long and her smile is fading fast.

Freddie has always known that iCarly isn't going to be a permanent fixture for their entire lives, that they'll grow up and become more interested in living life to the fullest than being two web comedians and a technical producer, but it doesn't make the blow to his gut any softer. His heart is beginning to feel heavy, like it is lodged in his throat and he is still to learn to stop speaking to avoid choking on the muscle.

If you'd have asked Freddie when iCarly first began who he'd be sticking with when it all ends he'd have told you Carly, always Carly because he imagined Sam upping and leaving them as soon as a better opportunity came her way (he'd always assumed someone would contact her through the website to be a food tester on some meatball-based cookery show). He'd have never picked Sam because he used to be so afraid of being left alone with her in a room.

Now he relishes in her company now that Carly has all but ditched them. He's stuck between whether it is her melodic laughter, natural comedic streak or brilliant mind that has him hooked, he doesn't think he'll ever come to a solid answer, but he knows he never wants to be unhooked. All the long evenings and longer weekend days spent in her company are having a positive effect on him, making him see a side of her he'd never thought he would get close enough to see. She's vulnerable, scared stiff of losing what the three of them have and he knows she's been aware of the situation much longer than he has from the pained look in her blue eyes. He wants to hold her, tell her they'll get through it, but he doesn't want to over step the mark and regret it when he's in hospital after being pushed down the elevator shaft Shane-style.

She can still be vicious if the moment calls for it.

He's noticing the little things, like how she only ties her hair up at the weekend and how she only allows herself to wear a skirt once a week (with a pair of mandatory patterned leggings). He likes seeing the Sam behind the 'tough girl' façade, she is caring and the slightest bit innocent which is something he never thought she'd be. He has begun treasuring certain moments with her so he'll never forget – like the Thursday evening in March when Carly was playing tonsil tennis with her boyfriend and Sam made him a sandwich without asking if he wanted one and she did not eat half of it herself; the rainy Friday in April when she drove him to school in her truck with no complaints because the water tank in his car blew up; every weekend for the past three months when she has fallen asleep on his shoulder after exhausting days planning/recording random titbits of footage for the website.

Although he misses Carly's presence – he can't remember when they stopped frequenting the Groovy Smoothie as a group, can't recall the when they stopped playing 'cupcake slam' in the Shay's kitchen – he finds compensation in spending more time than ever with Sam.

It is going to be an end of a era, brutal and heart wrenching, and he knows tears will be shed, not necessarily out of freewill, but they'll fall whether they like it or not.

Freddie wants to suggest they try and produce something with just the two of them, a show called iSam as a rip-off of the original title or something new and wacky ('The Ham and Fried Chicken Show'...?), but he knows Sam considers herself as nothing without her charismatic co-host. Plus he knows the dynamic will become screwed by moving from a threesome to a twosome. In all honesty, he wants iCarly back on top form, the way it used to be with Carly being perky, Sam being crazy and the occasional shirtless Gibby.

But he knows there is no reversing the damage.

Once it arrives he's going to have to reluctantly embrace the bittersweet end.

* * *

"**All lovely things will have an ending; all lovely things will fade and die."**

* * *

Carly never sees the end coming and it blindsides her, hitting her with the force of a speeding double-decker bus careening off course and she isn't sure if she'll ever recover to be the person she was before. She wants people to know that the separation was never the intended outcome of nearly five years of broadcasting and over two hundred and forty shows, that the distance she put between them was not purposeful, it was a subconscious occurrence.

She had tried to divide her time between her boyfriend and her best friends, tried to spend a few hours every evening with Sam and Freddie before sneaking out to see Griffin, but gradually one has overpowered the other and suddenly she is only seeing Sam and Freddie in the halls at school, quick exchanges of "hi" and "how's things?" before they disappear to their next class, and once a week for an hour to broadcast iCarly. She had thought it would be easier than this, that getting herself the boyfriend she has been wanting for so long would just slide into place alongside everything else in her life and she'd be able to sail along in the carefree manner she is known for. Only it hasn't, Sam and Freddie don't see eye-to-eye with Griffin and vice-versa and the time they once demanded from her has slowly been devoured by her desperate need to feel love, to find comfort in tattooed arms.

Rehearsals stopped happening weeks ago around the time each of them started closing themselves off and disconnecting from what once made them content. The void has grown too large for her to fill it with tight lipped smiles and fake enthusiasm, and really she should have seen the end thundering towards her from a mile away but she has been too wrapped up in Griffin to wake up and smell the damn coffee. She had sensed the change in the mood between the three of them and she tried to pass it off as a rough patch they'd get through, a turbulence that would eventually right itself, but it didn't and she has been questioning for months how she can make other people happy when she isn't happy herself.

She had a feeling in her gut that something bad was coming – a feeling similar to the excruciating pain she felt when she had her appendix removed aged six – the evening Sam and Freddie stood in front of her, the two of them shoulder-to-shoulder with matching deadpan expressions on their faces, but she had thought it would a conversation about a hiatus until exams and prom and graduation were over, not an official end to the web show.

She doesn't cry, simply agreeing with a curt nod, saving her tank of tears for a later date.

She'll never forget Sam, always holding memories of stolen tuna sandwiches, t-shirts traded for concert tickets, ponytail yanking, fights over a certain pretty AV club boy, disastrous girly makeovers and butter-filled sock weapons close to her heart. Fond recollections of random dancing, messing with Lewbert, being kidnapped in Japan and spontaneously driving to Idaho and Hollywood will never leave her. The fiery blonde will always be a part of who Carly is even if they no longer see each other to the extent they once did.

She thinks Sam could become a legendary web comedian by herself. She has it in her to do it, she just needs a push in the right direction.

Freddie will always be an awkward dork in her eyes, although she'll never tell him this because he'll accuse her of siding with Sam and the years of torment she has submitted him to. She's seen him grow up before her eyes, going from a geeky little boy who would never leave her alone to a taller, stronger young man who has finally stopped taking Sam's abuse and has slowly soothed the insufferable 'blonde headed demon' into submission. He's been like a second brother to her and she wouldn't change that for anything.

Goodbyes are hard to do but Carly Shay has them perfected. First it was her mother (death), then her father (months away with work), and finally Sam and Freddie (impending separation).

Despite everything, she knows Sam and Freddie have each other – they always have and they always will. She has seen the pent-up sexual tension building between them for the past three years (since they kissed, something they don't think Carly knows) and she has had to fight the urge to shout "can't you guys get together already?" on several occasions. They're the most imperfect perfect couple and they don't even realise it.

They'll get together once they are left to their own devices. She has no doubt about it.

She'll be okay. Carly Shay knows how to cope, how to lock her feelings away in a forgotten corner to never acknowledge they existed. She'll get by somehow, re-watching old webcasts from 2007 to ease the pain until it becomes a dull ache she can control, curling up in Griffin's arms as he strokes her hair and rocks her back and forth.

She'll fight the need to cry. Carly Shay doesn't do breakdowns, doesn't want mascara running down her face in rivers as she falls apart.

The more she thinks about it the more she accepts the fact that all good things come to an end. They've got to move in their own directions eventually, their lives having reached the fork in the road that is seeing them diverge down two different paths, but she can't help but wish that it had been tidier, less ugly, not driven by their desperation.

As what made up her world for five years crashes down around her it leaves a sour taste in her mouth for the fact she could have tried harder to make things work. The three of them are torn between happiness and sadness, not quite finding a balance that works, as it becomes a bittersweet end.

* * *

"**What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."**

* * *

iCarly comes to an end on Friday 18th May 2012 on their two hundred and forty-fifth webcast with an audience of nine thousand eight hundred and twenty-two people from all corners of the world.

Spencer operates the camera to give the opportunity of Carly, Sam and Freddie to be in front of the camera for the entire show, which is a first in iCarly history, and a last. The three of them try their best to be on top form, to give back everything their fans have given them over the years and a little bit more and they manage it by the skin of their teeth. The hostile environment evaporates as they try to enjoy the last two hours they're going to spend together as the infamous trio behind the iCarly phenomenon, reverting back to what they do best as they random dance at sporadic intervals, cram in as many guest stars as physically possible and play one more hilarious (and probably the best) prank on Lewbert.

It is the end of an era, but it isn't the end of the world.

Things change, people move on.

* * *

**  
A/N:** The quotes are from Martin Luther King Jr. (first and second), Conrad Aiken (third) and T.S. Eliot (fourth).


End file.
